The Brazilian stayed away from Garza’s power early in the fight, then took him down and calmly worked his way to a fight-ending arm-triangle choke.

The featherweight bout was part of the main card of today’s UFC on FUEL TV 9 event at Ericsson Globe Arena in Stockholm. It aired on FUEL TV following prelims on Facebook.

Brandao kicked early, trying to keep the much taller Garza at bay. He backed him up with a two-punch combo 75 seconds into the fight. Shortly thereafter, Brando put together a combination that had Garza backing up and he got inside and scooped Garza up for a takedown.

On top, Brandao looked for an arm triangle that initially wasn’t there, but he passed out to side control, then briefly to mount before settling back in on the side. And in short order, Brandao went back to work on that arm triangle. He locked up and Garza soon tapped before getting up and shaking his head in dismay.

Brandao afterward said the game plan was to get the fight to the ground, where his Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt skills could be put to use.

“The game plan was to use my jiu-jitsu,” Brandao said. “Because he’s so tall and long, we didn’t want to strike too much. I have Brazilian jiu-jitsu in my blood.”

Brandao (17-8 MMA, 3-1 UFC) won for the second straight time after a UFC 153 win over Joey Gambino and has won six of his past seven. Garza (12-4 MMA, 3-3 UFC) is back in the loss column after a November win over Mark Hominick, and he now has dropped three of four.

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